Saturday Training – 3rd November

Saturday training was good fun again, with very similar conditions to last week. Big waves but clear and fun and I had a fabulous time again. There was a kind of funky diagonal rip from the middle sweeping out to the North end of the beach so we started out doing circuits of catching that out and swimming back in at the north end.

After the warm up the group was split into two groups…one group of people who were less comfortable with the bigger surf conditions, and one group who were a little more experienced. I started out with the more confident group, as I generally actually enjoy the bigger waves. It soon became clear, though, that Julie and I weren’t really quick enough to keep up with the majority of that group. After the first 3 circuits we let the coach know and headed back to join the other group.

They were doing straight ins and outs and practising their beach skills for getting under waves and swimming out (getting back ins n’t such a problem!). Julie and I stretched ourselves by swimming further out past the break for each circuit…our own “intermediate” stage!

This setup highlights an important point about ocean swimming. It’s good to push yourself and to work on developing new skills, but Coach Kingy has a saying that we “swim to our ability”. Although we know and love the ocean, and Bondi Beach in particular, it’s always good to have a healthy respect for it, and a clear idea of your own capability. That’s how we stay out of trouble.

And not one 4SEAsons swimmer has yet ended up in New Zealand (without a plane, anyway).

So that’s really it for the Spring season. Next week the chaos that is Can Too begins. The squad will be split up as many of us have positions within the pods as coaches, team captains and mentors, and out of the rest a good number are signed up to do the program as swimmers. The schedule has been revamped and extra sessions added, including Monday nights at Clovelly now daylight savings is here and the evenings are still light. Training is about to ramp up and it’s only two weeks til the first race of the season.